BEIJING, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- Beijing has offered 106 million yuan (about 15.1 million U.S. dollars) to support the development of brick-and-mortar bookshops in 2019, nearly double that of 2018, local authorities said Sunday.

So far, a total of 239 physical bookstores have received funding, according to the municipal bureau of finance.

To better support the bookstores, the bureau has been working with other related departments and published standards on the subsidies. It also set up a system to better manage the funding by evaluating the performances of the stores.